Amazon.com
Despite the general resistance to his work on the part of his literary contemporaries, and their disapproval of his homoeroticism, Walt Whitman experienced incredible success during his lifetime. After the 1855 publication of Leaves of Grass (the first of nine editions of the book he personally saw through the press), he fast became America's national poet. He was asked to write poems commemorating the victims of natural disasters and was offered a free burial plot in exchange for a poem lauding the cemetery's beauty. Millionaire Andrew Carnegie was one of his vigorous supporters.
Whitman's success is most likely the result of the approachability--he wrote often of the immediate: the sounds of the city, men bathing in the river, the mystery around the next corner--and sheer beauty of his poems. He was also an expert self-promoter. Long before the advent of the blurb in contemporary publishing, Whitman would include reviews of his books in the appendices. Many of these were actually written by him and a few were even critical, in order to maintain a sense of objectivity. He carefully controlled his public image, but assiduously guarded his private realm, which is why, more than a century after the poet's death, debate still rages about his sexual proclivity--there simply isn't enough proof one way or another. The Song of Himself, the first comprehensive biography of Whitman in 20 years, is rich with details of its subject's life and times and cogent analysis of his poetry--a book that is sure to increase readers' understanding of the great poet and reinvigorate their interest in his work.
From Publishers Weekly
In this critical biography, Loving describes Walt Whitman as "half New York journalist, half New England transcendentalist," and goes on to outline skillfully the complexities and contradictions of the poet's life and times. Loving begins with the Civil War, when Whitman, his racy reputation already established by the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), nursed the wounded and wrote, as both poet and journalist, of the atrocities of the war of brother against brother. Loving then backtracks to Whitman's life in New York?Long Island, Brooklyn and "Mannahatta" (as the poet called Manhattan)?taking us through his early years as a journalist and editor, didactic novelist and versifier in the European tradition. Whitman himself emerges as a kind of liberal puritan?relatively progressive politically, rather more conservative culturally. The book is light on criticism until a detailed account of "the central literary event of the nineteenth century," a close and revealing reading of the seminal Leaves of Grass. While Loving discusses intimate male friendship and homoeroticism, particularly in respect to the Calamus poems, he makes little of recent gender theory on Whitman (the work of, for example, Robert K. Martin and Michael Moon) and fails to provide the narrative charge of David S. Reynolds's acclaimed 1995 cultural biography of Whitman. While students of the great American bard will value this highly detailed and thoroughly documented biography (strengthened by recently unearthed Whitman journalism), the general reader may wish to start elsewhere. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this meticulous and resourceful account of Walt Whitman's life, Loving (Emily Dickinson: The Poet on the Second Story, 1987) has successfully captured many sides of the poet's well-researched yet still obscure character. Loving covers all aspects of Whitman's private and public life, thus unveiling the poet in all his glory. Themes discussed include Whitman's youth and relationships with family members, quarrels with editors, the Civil War years, and the intricate circumstances that surrounded each edition of Leaves of Grass. Loving challenges us to be more than just passive readers, especially when he quotes Whitman's poetry to support his arguments. He evidently rejects the traditional, chronological way of documenting events but doesn't overlook the importance of simple and accessible writing. Although this book is likely to be more useful and respected in academic libraries, it is strongly recommended for public libraries as well.AMirela Roncevic, "Library Journal"Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Andrew Delbanco
Loving's book is full of good sense. It is a treasury of useful information...
The Atlantic Monthly, Phoebe-Lou Adams
For Whitman enthusiasts, Mr. Loving has provided a fine, thoroughly interesting, worthwhile biography with much new material. The book does call for some preparatory reading by the uninitiated.
Los Angeles Times
Loving's biography succeeds in conveying much of what makes Whitman such an indispensable figure in our heritage.
From Kirkus Reviews
Perhaps every age needs to reinterpret its icons, but this first full-length, critical biography of Walt Whitman in nearly 20 years, while perfectly serviceable and replete with modest insights and discoveries, is primarily for scholars. Though Whitman avidly sought to be a public poet, going so far as to supply newspapers with self-congratulatory reviews and blind items, much about his life remains elusive. Certain key portions of his early years, such as an extended sojourn in New Orleans, seem biographically and artistically important, but details are vague. And in an era which desperately wants to claim him as gay, or at least bisexual, the full range and breadth of his sexuality and sexual experiences are still hotly debated and hard to pin down. The upshot is that any account of the ``good graybeards'' life tends to be rife with interesting but ultimately indecisive speculation and closely cloistered academic debate. Loving (Emily Dickinson: The Poet on the Second Story, not reviewed, etc.) stays further above the fray than most and puts to rest several of the wilder surmises, but doughty portions of this account feel more like an MLA colloquium than an engaged biography. However, the author does break some new ground in his analysis of Whitmans journalistic career, particularly how it shaped his politics and poetry. While hed scribbled all kinds of ephemera as a journalist, including a forgettable temperance novel, Whitman enjoyed little success or acclaim until the self-published and self-promoted collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, in 1855. With its vers libre, democratic vistas, frank eroticism, and fixation on the self, it was an utterly original landmark. Though Whitman, despite a scandalous reputation, never became as famous in his lifetime as Longfellow or Whittier or Emerson, in death he has eclipsed all rivals as the father of modern American poetry. A useful academic biography, but not one to capture the imagination of the general reader. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Times Higher Education Supplement
"Strikes a balance between substance and speculation; it is scholarly and precise while...leaving room for the reader's own conclusions...."
Toronto Globe & Mail
"Loving's award-winning biography utilizes many advances in Whitman scholarship. . . . "
Booklist starred review
The first authoritative biography of the famed poet in more than 40 years, and it has been well worth waiting for. ...This fantastic biography of one of America's most colorful and extraordinary characters shows a Whitman whose life and wanderings echo the ethos of that period in our country. A delightful read.
Robert D. Richardson, author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire
A grand, comprehensive, rich, and satisfying biography of America's greatest poet. Loving is one of the pre-eminent Whitman scholars of our time, and with this book he has created the capstone biography of Whitman. By that I mean that it builds on all its predecessors, synthesizes a mountain of Whitman scholarship and criticism, and then goes on beyond it all to create a vast, detailed, panoramic view of Whitman's life, the most complete, by far, of all the Whitman biographies.
Frederick Crews, University of California, Berkeley
Hats off to Jerome Loving, who combines lucidity and learning in equal measure! Walt Whitman is a testament of fidelity to the embattled cause of accurate, untendentious historical scholarship. Here is Whitman just as he was, for better or worse, in his own time rather than our own. The book is riveting from start to finish.
J. D. McClatchy, poet and critic
The mystical origins and spiritual force of Leaves of Grass--a work that both embodies and defines the American soul--will always remain a mystery. But there's also the puzzle of Whitman himself. Jerome Loving's scrupulously researched and judicious biography fits so many new pieces into that puzzle--about the man who became a poet, and the poet who became a legend.
Book Description
Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself is the first full-length critical biography of Walt Whitman in more than forty years. Jerome Loving makes use of recently unearthed archival evidence and newspaper writings to present the most accurate, complete, and complex portrait of the poet to date. This authoritative biography affords fresh, often revelatory insights into many aspects of the poet's life, including his attitudes toward the emerging urban life of America, his relationships with his family members, his developing notions of male-male love, his attitudes toward the vexed issue of race, and his insistence on the union of American states. Virtually every chapter presents material that was previously unknown or unavailable, and Whitman emerges as never before, in all his complexity as a corporal, cerebral, and spiritual being. Loving gives us a new Poet of Democracy, one for the twenty-first century. Loving brings to life the elusive early Whitman, detailing his unhappy teaching career, typesetting jobs, quarrels with editors, and relationships with family and friends. He takes us through the Civil War--with Whitman's moving descriptions of the wounded and dying he nursed, the battlegrounds and camps he visited--demonstrating why the war became one of the defining events of Whitmans life and poetry. Loving's account of Whitman's relationship with Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most complete and fascinating available. He also draws insights from new material about Whitman's life as a civil servant, his Lincoln lectures, and his abiding campaign to gain acceptance for what was regarded by many as a 'dirty book.' He examines each edition of Leaves of Grass in connection with the life and times that produced it, demonstrating how Whitman's poetry serves as a priceless historical document--marking such events as Grant's death, the completion of the Washington monument, Custer's defeat, and the Johnstown flood--at the same time that it reshapes the canon of American literature. The most important gap in the Whitman record is his journalism, which has never been completely collected and edited. Previous biographers have depended on a very incomplete and inaccurate collection. Loving has found long-forgotten runs of the newspapers Whitman worked on and has gathered the largest collection of his journalism to date. He uses these pieces to significantly enhance our understanding of where Whitman stood in the political and ideological spectra of his era. Loving tracks down the sources of anecdotes about Whitman, how they got passed from one biographer to another, were embellished and re-contextualized. The result is a biography in which nothing is claimed without a basis in the factual record. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself will be an invaluable tool for generations to come, an essential resource in understanding Leaves of Grass and its poet--who defied literary decorum, withstood condemnation, and stubbornly pursued his own way.
Card catalog description
Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself is the first full-length critical biography of Walt Whitman in more than forty years. Jerome Loving makes use of recently unearthed archival evidence and newspaper writings to present the most accurate, complete, and complex portrait of the poet to date. This biography affords fresh, often revelatory, insights into many aspects of the poet's life, including his attitudes toward the emerging urban life of America, his relationships with his family members, his developing notions of male-male love, his attitudes toward the vexed issue of race, and his insistence on the union of American states. Virtually every chapter presents material that was previously unknown or unavailable, and Whitman emerges as never before, in all his complexity as a corporal, cerebral, and spiritual being. Loving gives us a new Poet of Democracy, one for the twenty-first century.
From the Back Cover
"The mystical origins and spiritual force of Leaves of Grass (a work that both embodies and defines the American soul (will always remain a mystery. But there's also the puzzle of Whitman himself. Jerome Loving's scrupulously researched and judicious biography fits so many new pieces into that puzzle (about the man who became a poet, and the poet who became a legend." (J. D. McClatchy, poet and critic)
About the Author
Jerome Loving is the author of Lost in the Customhouse: Authorship in the American Renaissance (1993), Emily Dickinson: The Poet on the Second Story (1986), Emerson, Whitman, and the American Muse (1982), and Walt Whitman's Champion: William Douglas O'Connor (1978). He is the editor of Frank Norris's McTeague (1995), Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1990), and Civil War Letters of George Washington Whitman (1975).
Excerpted from Walt Whitman : The Song of Himself by Jerome Loving. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
FROM THE BOOK: "Toward the end of 1862 Walt Whitman traveled to war-torn Virginia in search of his brother, George. The poet stepped off the train at Falmouth Station, near Fredericksburg, and climbed a hill overlooking the Rappahannock River and the previous week's battle site. One of the first scenes that grimly welcomed him, he told his mother on December 29, "was a heap of feet, arms, legs, &c. under a tree in front of a hospital." -From Chapter One of Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself "Silently and surely are the months stealing along. A few more revolutions of the old earth will find me treading the paths of advanced manhood. This is what I dread: for I have not enjoyed my young time. I have been cheated of the bloom and nectar of life. Lonesome and unthought of as I am, I have no one to care for, or to care for me." -From Whitman's article "Sun-Down Papers No. 1" printed in the Hempstead Inquirer, February 29, 1840
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